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| Going yellow with Bersih, but ... Posted: 27 Jun 2011 04:34 PM PDT
Our family will wear yellow on July 9 and continue to support Bersih. But we won't be marching this time as the agenda for electoral reform has been diluted by hardcore Bersih supporters themselves. We are also not interested to be in the presence of Perkasa and Umno Youth, nor are we interested to march with PR leaders who have clearly undermined the leadership of Bersih and its legitimacy as a people's movement. Juana Jaafar, The Malaysian Insider Elections are not free and fair in Malaysia. That's a fact. And there's no point trying to convince families like ours otherwise. In the last two elections we've had to remove our late uncle's name from the electoral roll. He died in the 1970s. When we sought to lodge a police report for the recurring incident, the officer in charge said a report wasn't necessary as it was a small matter. We had to insist. In 2008 our mother, a traditional Shah Alam voter, suddenly found herself registered in Petaling Jaya. But she voted anyway to prevent the possibility of a "hantu" voting in her name. Under these circumstances, one can say families like ours are automatic supporters of the Bersih movement demanding for electoral reform. In fact in 2007, I represented my family at the Bersih rally in Kuala Lumpur for this very reason. On July 9 Bersih will march again because the Election Commission (EC) has not addressed the demands made in 2007. Given that almost four years, one general election and too many by-elections have gone by without reforms implemented, it is understandable that the organisers of Bersih have turned down the EC's recent invitation to dialogue. It's a little too late for talks now, so the march will go on. All the usual noise has since surfaced, this time amplified by the use of social media. Going by noise alone it appears the march this year will be as big as the one in 2007, and maybe even bigger. The support for Bersih has intensified to the point where being a non-supporter is a very lonely place to be; perhaps even untrendy. This is quite different from the atmosphere in 2007. What's the difference between then and now? It is not the anti-Bersih spin and propaganda in the mainstream media. It is not the position and statements made by politicians. It is not the police's decision to prioritise in protecting businesses over civil rights. So what's the difference? A tangent and a few other men. It appears this year many young people are marching with Bersih out of general anger towards the government on issues extending beyond electoral reform. For many, issues like Aminulrasyid's death, the submarine deal and Bible fiasco have crept into their Bersih wish-list. As these "extras" are Pakatan Rakyat's (PR) usual poster slogans, those who typically align with Barisan Nasional (BN) are choosing to opt out of the march. This was not the case in 2007 where many BN supporters also marched with Bersih on the principle of electoral reform (only to have PR leaders hijack the people's march at Istana Negara).
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| Posted: 27 Jun 2011 03:22 PM PDT
Of all the comments about Bersih, none are more despicable than those of Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin who claimed that our reputation would be tarnished because the proposed Bersih march was politically motivated and threatened national security. By Mariam Mokhtar Surely not! Bersih does not pose any threat to national security but is a threat to Muhyiddin, Umno and its cronies. If the rakyat goes ahead with electoral reform and democracy is restored in Malaysia, then these people in Umno, and those who are closely associated with Umno, will lose everything. Some will lose their freedom. Did Muhyiddin ever consider why he and his colleagues in Umno/BN allowed democracy to be destroyed in Malaysia, in the first instance? Did he think that after 54 years, the rakyat would sit around and watch their country disintegrate? It is all very well to call the Bersih rally illegal but what about the illegal machinations with which Umno/BN has conducted itself and the way it bulldozes the rakyat's concerns. There are several reasons why Malaysia's reputation is tarnished and none involve Bersih. Many of the reasons have racial and religious undertones. We have seen the cow-head incident and the Interlok book, test our Hindu brethren. We then saw our Christian brothers being subject to vilification by the ban of the word Allah, the removal of religious symbols in the presence of senior Cabinet ministers and how a child was whipped for eating pork sausages at school. Sections of the community were also accused of planning to topple the government to pave the way for a Christian prime minister. However, when Malay and Muslim extremists disturbed the peace and called for a jihad, they were just given a rap on the knuckles. When the prolonged bombardment of sex, videos and lies did not achieve the desired effect on the rakyat, ministers then decided that we were communists intent on sabotaging the nation. Even wearing Che Guevera t-shirts became a crime. Now people are being arrested for wearing or selling yellow T-shirts. A few years ago, people were arrested for wearing black T-shirts, for distributing birthday cakes and for assembling under a raintree – Perak's Tree of Democracy. Now that Bersih is attempting to restore true democracy to the land, Muhyiddin's suggestion that Ambiga Sreenevasan is a national threat is laughable. Would he consider former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed who refuses to relinquish power and who has his hand up Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak's back and manipulates him like a glove puppet, a threat? What about Mahathir's agent provocateur, Ibrahim Ali, the president of the NGO Perkasa who despite his seditious talk, manages to elude arrest? It is said that Ibrahim Ali will be charged with sedition but we know that this is merely a last ditch attempt to appease us. The authorities realise that Bersih will continue with its march and the rakyat is determined to call for free, fair and clean elections. The Election Commission (EC) is as much to blame for the decline in Malaysia's state of affairs as the government. If only the EC did not have a puppet who is in Najib's pocket, as its leader, and if only it did half its duties, then Malaysia might not have fallen into the abyss. Muhyiddin has the brass cheek to suggest the EC is not aware of our protestations of vote-rigging, of abuse of postal voting and the shambolic way the ruling party intimidates or 'coerces' people into voting for them. All our complaints were brushed aside. Muhyiddin who attracted scorn when he declared he was 'a Malay first and Malaysian second' does send out mixed messages and perhaps, is not aware of what he is saying. As the Education Minister, Muhyiddin changed the language in which Science and Mathematics were taught in all our schools. In international forums, our poor grasp of the English language is evident. To arrest the decline in English, Muhyiddin arranged for English speaking teachers from around the world, including the Peace Corps, to come to Malaysia to teach English. Are there sufficient numbers to reach out to all schools? Are these people going to turn our education system around? Why did he choose to ignore the untapped talent of thousands of the older teachers who were schooled in the old ways and who speak good English. Why enlist foreigners at the expense of these able teachers? Is it because the majority of the English speaking Malaysian teachers are non-Malay? Muhyiddin said that because of Bersih, tourists will stop visiting, investors will sidestep us and that our 'image globally as a peaceful and developed country' will be tarnished. How shortsighted is he? Muhyiddin's policies just prove that Umno has no political will to change or to accept reform. If Bersih achieves its aims then there will be renewed business opportunities, more growth, increased investment in the nation and less theft of the rakyat's money. Corruption, abuse of power, nepotism and cronyism will be brought to manageable levels. Hopefully, our institutions like the EC amongst others, will regain their integrity. The first Bersih rally in 2007, when 50,000 took to the streets in a peaceful march, was marred when the police used heavy handed tactics and turned chemical laced water from water cannons onto the crowds and also attacked them with tear gas and baton charges. Bersih is not a threat to national security but is a real threat to Umno/BN. Umno/BN is the real threat to national security Please join the rally on 9 July and exercise your democratic right to free, clean and fair elections. The police are going to be sent to the rally. This time, they should join the march, instead of turning against it. They should do this to regain their reputation which Mahathir trashed and most importantly, for their own families and their childrens' futures. The Egyptian army did it and so can the Malaysian police.
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| Posted: 27 Jun 2011 03:17 PM PDT
By Stanley Koh, FMT Why is the rally for electoral reforms such a political hot potato? Why this gush of threats and calls for the punishment of the Bersih rally organisers? Why is the Barisan Nasioanl hegemony so fearful of electoral reforms? Why shouldn't it support free, fair and clean elections? Bertrand Russell once propounded the theory that bad leadership in a democracy is a logical impossibility. "The electorate always get the leaders they deserve. No matter how incompetent or venal the leaders are, the electorate must have been even worse to have elected them." But this cynical view cannot apply to Malaysia. The Malaysian experience has shown that it is possible for good citizens to get bad leaders. Malaysians deserve a capable government. Not only must the best men and women among the candidates across the political divide win elections; they must also be elected under democratic principles supervised by a truly independent body. Ministers and Members of Parliament should not be chosen because they are somebody's cronies or through political horse trading or by back-door means, as in the appointment of senators among election losers. The electorate must have all fair and just opportunities to elect the best governing team for the country. That is why Malaysians must strive for changes in the electoral landscape. In 2005, the Institute of Malaysian and International Studies (IKMAS), with support from the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, published a study of the existing electoral system in Malaysia. With contributions from more than a dozen distinguished academicians, it gives us one of the best analyses of Malaysia's electoral history. "The general conclusion reached in this assessment of the current state of Malaysia's electoral system is that Malaysian elections cannot be considered reasonably free and fair because they do not fulfil the functions required of them in formal democratic theory," the authors wrote. The rather silly official rebuttal against claims of unfairness and unjust elections is that the large voter turnout is a clear indication of public confidence in the electoral process. And then there is the even more perverted argument that the opposition's gains in the last general election proved that Malaysian elections are free and fair and the Election Commission is indeed independent. That Malaysian elections are not conducted fairly is not just an allegation from opposition parties; it is also the observation of non-partisan citizens. No intelligent Malaysian can deny that the Barisan Nasional (BN) uses public institutions and public agencies to help it win elections and no thinking observer can fail to notice that it often resorts to threats, intimidation and bribery. MCA hypocrisy Those who know something of the history of Malaysian elections cannot fail to note that the system is diseased. Except for the 1969 and 2008 elections, BN has consistently been re-positioned with two thirds of the majority in Parliament although this is not reflected in its share of the popular vote. Since the advent of the Internet, there has been an increase in documented evidence of BN's ghetto politicking and various forms of blatant unethical campaign practices. What is morally wrong cannot be politically correct, despite the perverted thinking among the leadership of the BN component parties, especially the MCA. Indeed, the hypocrisy of the current MCA leadership is in stark contrast to the thinking of the party's founding fathers. Hence, it should surprise no one to hear MCA recently threatening action against members planning to participate in the July 9 Bersih rally. MCA's current leaders, if they were true to the party's founding ideals, should instead revisit the efforts of their predecessors to ensure a just political system. In 1986, the MCA leadership voiced out, albeit discreetly, its disquiet over a range of unfair practices it attributed to the Umno leadership. Some of these had to do with the Chinese being under-represented in the BN government. MCA leaders had a pessimistic view of the future. They felt that the Umno hegemony would continue to cause an erosion of Chinese political power. The leadership frankly admitted in a report: "The BN system in itself poses an inherent disadvantage for the Chinese community. "This system gives the ruling elite in Umno the built-in opportunity to exploit intra-party divisions within Barisan to their advantage." The report also criticised the political bias in the delineation of electoral constituencies, citing the repeated amendment of the Federal Constitution to give heavier weight to rural constituencies, which it said went against the one-man-one-vote principle.
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